Shoot first, ask questions later [Deck] Landstill Revisited

[kill doug]

i'm testing a build of landstill which is the G/R/B version but Y not use Artifact mutation in the board as a faster kill as well as being able to help in those aggro workshop matchs which is one of landstills hardest match ups if theres no waste in hand

also i belive impluse is a much better choice than brainstorm its 1 more card + with all the land in the deck you can put some of it on the bottem of your deck

[jshields]

Thanks again for helping me out with the disk/desertion issue.  I have been known where I live to be notorious for running landstill and taking a long time, but eventually winning usually.  However, I really did not understand how to play landstill versus Hulk.  I am grateful now that I know to counter the draw, I just may have an improved chance of winning for once against the local Hulk Player.  Also, I think I will take your advice and stick with using Nevinyrral's Disk

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

i'm testing a build of landstill which is the G/R/B version but Y not use Artifact mutation in the board as a faster kill as well as being able to help in those aggro workshop matchs which is one of landstills hardest match ups if theres no waste in hand

also i belive impluse is a much better choice than brainstorm its 1 more card + with all the land in the deck you can put some of it on the bottem of your deck

Hmmm G/R/B, landstill without blue, eh ?  Maybe you mean U/r/g?  I think mutation would be a good sb choice/wish target vs workshop, it says RG: win the game .

Without moxen, brainstorm > impulse.  With fethlands you can shuffle away any undeeded cards in your hand or that you draw from your deck.

[HuntedWumpus]

I did some testing with the bugstill build recently and found it much more capable of dealing with threats and issues that came up. However, its lacked heavily on the supporting card craw/quality that the U/r/g version equipped itself with Via 3 brainstorm and 3 T'response's.

I then maid some painfully harsh cuts to the deck, it being tuned to tightly to incorporate 3 impulse.

-1 Pernicious Deed
-1 Regrowth
-1 Mind twist (AHHHH, that was hard to cut)
+3 Impulse

Honestly I think that the mid twist needs to go back in but the only other choice I could see was to yank out a cunning wish, hurting equally bad. The addition of Impulse greatly increases finding a deed if needed, and with the CW board I think it can be cut to three. I didn't find regrowth to be all that great, granted it can be a strong pull, but often is not what you need, while an Impulse has a greater chance of being able to supply the answer.

Thoughts, disagree with the impulse?

[Arvid]

1> Have anyone tried maindecked River Boas? I know they have poor synergi with the overall strategy, it's a permanent (Chain of Vapor) and it's a spell (Standstill), but it does regenerate (Nevinyrral's Disk). Also, Islandwalk could be kind of neat.

2> Does anyone have any experiences of and/or thoughts on Powder Keg and Nevinyrral's Disk in the deck? I was thinking in an U/R version, Powder Keg replacing Lightning Bolts. This means you have approximately 12 cards that nets 2-for-1 or more, meaning huge tempo/card advantage. It's slower than bolt and can not be used as a secondary win condition, but it seems quite versatile, for example you could take out a bunch of moxen at the same time for the mana denial route.

3> Have anyone, as a result of the rebirth of mono-U phid, considered going back to mono-U Landstill? In this case you need to run both Kegs and Disks and maybe something more, such as additional Chain of Vapors. I guess the situations of these two mono colored decks are quite different, mostly because a deck with manlands never can make use of Back to Basics, but .... Has mono-U any pros?

[firebird365]

1> Have anyone tried maindecked River Boas? I know they have poor synergi with the overall strategy, it's a permanent (Chain of Vapor) and it's a spell (Standstill), but it does regenerate (Nevinyrral's Disk). Also, Islandwalk could be kind of neat.

River Boas don't work - it would be like playing suboptimal UG Fish. Landstill wants as little non-land permanents as possible, and River Boa really wouldn't help the deck at all. It's just another 2-power beater that takes up your Drain mana or your Standstill.

2> Does anyone have any experiences of and/or thoughts on Powder Keg and Nevinyrral's Disk in the deck? I was thinking in an U/R version, Powder Keg replacing Lightning Bolts. This means you have approximately 12 cards that nets 2-for-1 or more, meaning huge tempo/card advantage. It's slower than bolt and can not be used as a secondary win condition, but it seems quite versatile, for example you could take out a bunch of moxen at the same time for the mana denial route.

People play Keg, it's just not worth it to most people since it takes so long to get going. The bigger stuff (Arrogant Wurms, Titans) will kill you long before the Keg will get running, and Landstill has enough was to get rid of Welder and Fish creatures.

3> Have anyone, as a result of the rebirth of mono-U phid, considered going back to mono-U Landstill? In this case you need to run both Kegs and Disks and maybe something more, such as additional Chain of Vapors. I guess the situations of these two mono colored decks are quite different, mostly because a deck with manlands never can make use of Back to Basics, but .... Has mono-U any pros?

No. The main reason why Mono-U works is because, as you said, Back to Basics and an invulnerability to Wastelands. Landstill has to run at least 8 non-basics, 9 almost all the time. Red gives you ways to deal with creatures, better matches against Artifact and Aggro - blue gives you a slightly more resilient manabase, but the difference is almost nothing.

[HuntedWumpus]

Right now I am concentrating more on the U/b/g version vs The U/g/r oathboard version. While both builds posses major advantages and disadvantages in style of play and strengths.

Landstill w/ Oath board
2 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Fire / Ice
4 Standstill
3 Brainstorm/Impulse
3 Terferi’s Response
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Annul
2 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth/fastbond

Sideboard
4 Oath of Druids
2 Darksteel Colossus
1 Gaea's Blessing
2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Artifact Mutation
3 Red Elemental Blast

Bugstill
1 Library of Alexandria
 4 Polluted Delta
 4 Faerie Conclave
 4 Mishra's Factory
 4 Wasteland
 1 Strip Mine
 3 Tropical Island
 3 Underground Sea
 1 Island
 1 Mox Sapphire
 1 Lotus Petal
 1 Black Lotus

 3 Duress
 2 Misdirection
 4 Mana Drain
 4 Force of Will

 4 Pernicious Deed
 2 Diabolic Edict
 1 Time Walk
 1 Mind Twist

 4 Standstill
 1 Ancestral Recall
 2 Skeletal Scrying


 3 Cunning Wish
 1 Demonic Tutor
 
 SB:
 1 Diabolic Edict
 1 Misdirection
 1 Blue Elemental Blast
 1 Vampiric Tutor
 1 Fact or Fiction
 1 Oxidize
 1 Stifle
 1 Coffin Purge
 3 Planar Void
 4 Old Man of the Sea/River Boa

Both decks are very strong. Its two different approaches. I feel standard landstill is more streamline but the other deck has more adapability.

[firebird365]

Honestly, reverting to UR Landstill seems to be the way to go, right now. I'm currently playing 5 basics so I don't auto-lose to Crucible, plus 2 MD Crucibles of my own help out a bit... plus, I don't lose to Blood Moon or B2B.

Honestly, I feel every Landstill deck should run Crucible. Sure, it's a permanent (and non-land permanents are bad), but it's SO. DAMN. GOOD. It fits into the style of play so well.

I really like the way that BUGStill deck looks, though... can you consistantly drop Deed early to take care of beaters?

[HuntedWumpus]

I have been testing versions of bugstill for the last couple of weeks. I started with the previous building with the only draw being standstill and the single ancestral. I started looking at the several options for extra search draw. It seemed that brainstorm was subpar with so few shuffle abilities. Impulse worked very well, but I found that Scrying was just so strong to pass up.

The only weak point of bugstill is the inferior draw/search engine it has. But the power and speed of running early and harsh deeds, backed up with MD edicts and cunning wish board can present huge problems late game.

I am currently testing an Cunningwish/oath board. Its not very flexible, but it has 8 Cunning wish targets and the 7 oathboard components. I am also looking heavily at old man of the sea to combat welders.

Thoughts

[Henkka]

My belief about landstill is that it is eather UR or UW. Running AT LEAST 4 basics seems to be the way to go right now. I have been tinkering with meny versions of landstills for months now.. and I think my current UW build is pretty strong (playing in aggroish meta).

For reference here is the list. (no power)

Mana: (26)

5 x Fetch (4 strand, 1 delta)
4 x Mishra's factory
3 x Faerie conclave
4 x tundra
3 x Island
1 x Plains
4 x Wasteland
1 x Strip mine
1 x LoA

Draw/tutor: (9)

4 x Brainstorm
4 x Standstill
1 x Enlightened tutor

Counter magic: (12)

4 x Force of Will
4 x Mana Drain
2 x Stifle
2 x Misdirection

Removal & fancy stuff: (12)

4 x StoP
3 x Nevinyrral's Disk
2 x Crucible of Worlds
1 x Chain of Vapor

And justice for all: (3)

2 x Exalted Angel
1 x Decree of justice

First of all, Brainstorm has been really great for me. There's 6 shuffle effects in deck and I really like seeing brainstorm in my opening had wether there's a fetch land or not.

Angel department gives the deck some aggro controllish feel and I'd say greatly improves the aggro match up overall. Once I tryed them in I never looked back. If they're good enough for 4CC then why not in landstill?

Also, playing landstill without crucibles is wicked evil. Never ever do that.

Thoughts?

[cccck]

landstill running exalted angel, it seems difficult to morph it since it needs 2 white mana.

[Henkka]

landstill running exalted angel, it seems difficult to morph it since it needs 2 white mana.

Sure. Getting 2 white mana can be an issue sometimes. How ever it's rather rare (considering that I have 10 white sources + 2 crusibles...).

[Covetous]

I believe that brainstorm is only for landstill decks that use the oath sideboard strategy (so that you can put a colossus back on top of your deck).  Impulse is very good in place of brainstorm if you aren't running green.  I think that exalted is probably weaker than DoJ due to lack of synergy with standstill and necessary WW cost.  Crucible seems like it could be very powerful, yet the anti-synergy with disk concerns me.  I agree that more basics is very important for landstill, so running 2 colors may be optimal.  Red is (and always has been) the color of choice--white can be strong but rack and ruin is the major reason that UR is probably better than UW for the current meta.  Green is a decent third color, but I'm not sure about black.  The BUGstill deck you posted is very interesting, but I'm not convinced that pernicious deed is enough better than disk to justify running the weakest supporting color for this deck.  Maybe I underrate the power of black in landstill, but I think the ability to include broken cards like d tutor and yawgwin doesn't make up for the lack of effect brought by black.  Bascially, when you add a color, think about what the color brings to the deck:
red--cheap creature removal, great artifact removal
white--aternate win condition, cheap creature removal, decent artifact removal, enchantment removal
green--good anti-aggro sb strategy, decent artifact removal, good enchantment removal
black--tutoring, brokenness, disruption

Thus, UR, URg or URw landstill is probably the best best.  

On a random note, has anyone else considered playing crater hellion in the SB as a powerful anti-aggro tool (for those situations when colossus won't cut it)?

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I believe that brainstorm is only for landstill decks that use the oath sideboard strategy (so that you can put a colossus back on top of your deck).  Impulse is very good in place of brainstorm if you aren't running green.  I think that exalted is probably weaker than DoJ due to lack of synergy with standstill and necessary WW cost.  Crucible seems like it could be very powerful, yet the anti-synergy with disk concerns me.  I agree that more basics is very important for landstill, so running 2 colors may be optimal.  Red is (and always has been) the color of choice--white can be strong but rack and ruin is the major reason that UR is probably better than UW for the current meta.  red--cheap creature removal, great artifact removal
white--aternate win condition, cheap creature removal, decent artifact removal, enchantment removal
green--good anti-aggro sb strategy, decent artifact removal, good enchantment removal
black--tutoring, brokenness, disruption

Thus, UR, URg or URw landstill is probably the best best.  

Brainstorm is better than impulse in a deck without a full set of moxen.  Brainstorm is not jsut for putting the colossus back; it is the ultimate hand optomiser.

Exalted does lack synergy but is very powerful and I would consider runnign it in an aggro heavy meta as was mentioned above.

Crucible is too synergystic with the rest of the deck not to run, but keg would probably be the better sweeper for an aggro meta.  Keg and disk will both come online around the same time vs 1-2cc creatures, so disk is only really better in more diverse metas where the artifact sweeping matters (vs workshop decks, etc).

Agree about 2 colours, although it is meta dependant.

but rack and ruin is the major reason that UR is probably better than UW for the current meta.

His meta is different he said it was aggro heavy.  Rack and ruin and REB are thus not as important so stp can take up the role of cheap removal and angel can become the auto-win vs aggro that it is for 4cc and DoJ can cycle under a standstill which is good against aggro decks that attempt to gain board advantage quickly.  That said, I would still say that splashing green for oath is probably the easiest thing to do do beat aggro; landstill is quite vulnerable to non-basic hate as it is so I don't think that a small splash will make a significant difference is increasing that vulnerability.

So, for a more normal meta I would probably think that the U/r or U/r/g builds are better choices but I think that U/w is certainly a viable choice in an aggro-based meta.

[Arvid]

With Crucible and all what do you think about the mana base? Specifically...

1> What's the correct number of mana sources (with artifact acceleration where/when available)? 26-28 for 2 to 3-color builds are the amounts presented in this thread. The primer (post-mirrodin decklist) says 28 sources in a 2-color build.

2> How many basic lands are ideal? With Crucible around we want a fair amount of basics. Against Sundering Titan I felt that Shivan Reef was better than fetch lands, although now I feel that I need to lower the amount of reefs and upper the amount of fetches, to be able to go basic when needed.

[Devoted]

I think one misdirection in maindeck might be an option because you've got many cards to pitch to it and it's really good against some matchups and in a competive meta many decks should be running a lot of counters and ancestrals. But hoping to misdirect a ancestral is maybe a little to much hoping.